"Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes, Yes Lord. Amen!"

“Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes, Yes Lord. Amen!”

Reflecting on today’s Solemnity of the Annunciation, this line from the popular 2002 worship song by Darnell Evans, Trading My Sorrows, came to mind.

One of the principal themes of this page of Luke’s Gospel is that of Mary’s “yes”.

Mary’s “yes” has always been a jaw-dropper, the surprise ending to a passage saturated with divine intervention, the awe-inspiring and yet intimidating model of what our response to God is called to be. It has been described as total, perfect, simple, and…all-encompassing.

The “all-encompassing” part is the hardest part for me to get my mind around. Is a teenage girl really able to say “yes” to all life will bring upon her when she is yet at its earliest beginnings? Was Mary’s “yes” a “yes” well-informed of what lay ahead? Could she have possibly foreseen the suffering beyond that of her already difficult situation of being found with child before her marriage to Joseph?

I think Italian slang has the best answer to these questions: ni (no and si).

Mary is human, just like us. She was conceived without original sin, she was full of grace, but she’s human. And so I find it hard to believe that she could have had full knowledge of all that was to come; that her “yes” would have extended all the way to the pain of the cross and the joy of the Resurrection.

But yet, even without knowing the details, she did say “yes” to it all. How?

I think the question is not so much WHAT she said “yes” to but WHO she said “yes” to. She might not have known all but her knowledge certainly was not lacking when she gave her famous fiat that changed the course of history.

What did Mary know when she said “yes”? Her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne, practicing Jews, would have most certainly taught her much about her people’s history. She would have known well the story of salvation up until that point: creation, the fall, years of exile and miraculous interventions engineered by the one true God, the Holy One of Israel. She would have learned about and learned to desire the coming of the long awaited Messiah. But even this is not yet enough. Mary’s knowledge of God would not have been only “textbook knowledge”. Her knowledge of Him was experiential, relational, and intimate. She was not only familiar with His faithfulness to her people but also to her. His love was not a general love spread out among many, but an intentional and personal love uniquely for her. The God Mary knew was not distant but close, deep within, and she was all too familiar with the sound of His voice, the sensation of His presence, the warmth of His gaze.

It is in the context of this loving relationship, with the fresh memory of lived experience, and because of past concrete life events that Mary says her “yes”. She knows well the One who calls her. She trusts Him completely, and she remembers that He is good to His promises.

Her “yes” does not directly address the future events of her life. It would be too little to give oneself for a mere single event of an existence destined to endure an eternity. No, she chooses, indeed she must and can only give herself so completely to the One who is eternity itself. And so she makes her “yes”. She courageously and confidently utters those few, simple words loaded with a meaning that will forever determine her existence and the existence of the whole world: Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to your word.

In one instant she embraces her Creator, flinging herself head long into His wide outstretched arms and along with Him she embraces all that is to come. She knows she will never understand the course of future events, why she will have to endure what she will, but she knows that if He allows it, He can bring good from it, and that is enough for her. She asks no questions and makes no requests. She simply makes herself available; she opens wide the doors of her heart and, quite literally, makes of herself a dwelling place of the Lord.

And so, just like in Darnell Evans’ famous record that most all of us have sung and dance to at some point in our lives, Mary’s “yes” is eager, enthusiastic, and almost exaggerated: Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes, Yes Lord. Amen!

On this holy day in which we remember her “yes” let us ask Mary’s intercession in our own “yes”. That we may not merely say “yes” to a situation but rather to the God of all situations. May our trust in Him and love for Him grow each day until all we seek is to do His will and be in His presence. 

"...Yes, Yes  Lord. Amen!"